Salvini suffers setbacks, but also makes gains in Italian regional election

Matteo Salvini and his far-right League Party were beaten by the centre-left Democratic Party in Sunday’s regional election in the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy.
The Democratic Party secured a narrow win with 51.4% to 43.6% of the vote, won by Lucia Borgonzoni, the candidate backed by the League Party and its allies.
At the election day, Salvini violated campaign silence rules by writing: “First we’ll send them home on Sunday and then we’ll give the government of landings, taxes, and handcuffs an eviction notice”.
The left has governed the region for decades. Prior to the election, the populist Five Star Movement joined forces with the Democratic Party after Salvini pulled his party out of office, expecting to trigger a national election that was predicted in his favor.
“Emilia-Romagna has sent a signal. Salvini knows how to talk about problems, but he doesn’t know how to sort them out and the people have responded”, said the leader of the Democratic Party, Nicola Zingaretti.
However, Salvini won in Calabria, where the Five Star Movement won a little over 7%. The leader of Five Star, Luigi di Maio, announced his resignation days before the election, after a period of crisis in the party.